


Borderlands

by borgmama1of5



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borgmama1of5/pseuds/borgmama1of5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was haunted by the songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borderlands

Twenty-four hours.

He had been here for four days. Watching.

Just watching. Because to reveal himself would be pointless.

Twenty-four hours left. He could feel the relentless pull in his soul.

****

Two years since he had first heard the singing. The last night of High Summer Celebration. Shortest night of the year, spent outdoors, with family, with friends, with lovers, listening to the evensong of the insects, the calls of the night birds, the whispers of nocturnal animals, savoring the subtle yet inevitable transition to the pre-dawn trills of the wrens and thrushes and the stirring of the woodland creatures rising for the day. 

It had happened in that eerie calm during the changeover from last sigh of the old day to first breath of the new. He had wandered away from Katie and Joshua, granting them privacy, remembering with a brief, bittersweet pang last year’s High Summer, spent reveling with Alaric. 

And then the tendrils of a sweet song had brushed his ears and he was captured by the voice, held motionless as he sought to place its source.

“…tis a gift to come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right…” 

Faint, as if spiraling to be heard from a great distance, and yet crystalline clear, contentment radiating from the carefully articulated words.

“When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed…” 

He feared any movement, any noise, would break the spell, and yet he needed to know the source of the singing, needed to see the face belonging to the magical voice.

“…turn will be our delight, till by turning, turning we come ‘round right…”

The last word was dissipated by a non-existent breeze, the world held its breath—then he returned to himself with the chirrups of the birds and the skittering of the wood mice.

He managed to convince himself that he had imagined that snatch of singing—what other explanation could there be after a couple of innocuous questions established that he had been the only one who had heard it. He put it out of his mind.

****

Effortlessly following the pull of the voice, he reflexively noted the uncanny iridescent sheen of the insects flashing around him, and the faint yellow cast to foliage he’d otherwise find familiar. Some legends said that the portal in the Borderlands opened to an entirely different world. Walking here, among too-tall trees and excessively fragrant foliage, he believed it.

He realized his feet had found the packed earth of a trail, and he walked faster now, the voice louder.

“I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine…” 

****

He spent Mid-Winter’s Day, as custom, alone, meditating on his accomplishments and shortcomings of the year past and contemplating his aspirations for the year ahead. At dusk on this shortest day, he would break his fast with his family and each would share what the day’s self-examination had uncovered. 

He was seated on the thick rug, comfortably warmed by the heat radiating from the fire pit, when he heard it.

“Whiskey, you’re the life of man…”

He did not open his eyes, even though awareness jolted his body.

“Whiskey-o, Johnny-o, rise her up from down below…”

Laughter lurked among the words and he could picture a scene of high-spirited friends sharing libations and songs…and he needed desperately to see the singer, but his mind obstinately shadowed the faces.

“…more diversion can a man desire, than to sit him down all beside the fire…”

Calming his breathing, he let the golden voice envelop him, absorbing it into his own essence. If he could make it a part of him, he reasoned instinctively, then he could trace it, find the man who possessed this hypnotic voice, who sang these unfamiliar yet comfortable words.

The deep clang of the bell signaling the end of Mid-Winter’s daylight pierced his trance and the melody shattered. He gasped in physical pain at the abrupt sundering.

****

“Oh, I once was a ploughboy, but a soldier I’m now.  
I courted my lovely Molly as I followed the plow…”

The last time. He crept to the edge of the field, wedged himself behind a tree surrounded by bramble bushes, and watched, one final time, the muscled, sun-browned back laboring over the rows of tiny seedlings, singing the entire time.

“…You may go to the church on Sunday and meet your new love there.  
And if anybody loves you half as much as I do  
Then I’ll not stop your marriage. Farewell, love, adieu.”

It felt like that song was being sung to him, and he shut his eyes, swallowed, exhaled deeply. He should leave now. What was the point in lingering?

“You’ve been watching me.” A voice broke the silence, the statement simple and curious, maybe even slightly amused.

Brilliant green eyes met gold-flecked hazel ones.

Face-to-face with the man who had enchanted him, the man he could never have, his folly overwhelmed him. 

“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t be here.”

****

He dedicated himself to finding the singer, working his way backward through the legends, days spent in remote libraries, sifting through dusty parchment, struggling to translate the Old Language. His friends, his family, wondered at his single-minded determination, tried to distract him, entice him back to normal life. He didn’t explain what he was seeking, and he knew his behavior was worrisome to them, but it didn’t matter.

Another High Summer, another Mid-Winter, and yes, there was always a song…

And it always vanished.

Finally, piecing together the veiled references led him to the Borderlands, the fog-shrouded terrain on the edge of…everything. Land that all sane folk avoided because of the whispers of what lay beyond.

He was not sure he would be considered sane as he strode through the chill fog on the first day of High Summer.

But he believed only the Borderlands could lead him to the voice.

“…nor do I have light wings to fly…”

It called him…And he stepped through the mist into a sundrenched patch of moss between two incredibly tall trees, overcome with need to see the singer.

****

A hand reached out and carefully touched his cheek.

“I dreamed of you. And my heart said I could sing you here.” Awe lit the singer’s face.

“You did.”

They stood frozen, barely breathing, until he guided the hand away from his cheek. “I did not mean for you to see me,” he confessed.

“Why? You are here…It is meant to be.” And the man stepped closer, hesitated the briefest moment, then surrounded him in an embrace.

For a swirling eternity there was only peace, the scent of red cedar and spicy cinnamon and fertile earth. Reluctantly, he moved to separate himself. “I cannot stay. I must return to the Borderlands.”

“I will go with you.”

“You cannot.”

A critical scrutiny of his face. “Why?”

Every tale ended with the feckless traveler pulled back through the door between the worlds. No matter how noble…or passionate…or ill-intentioned the quest. 

And no one from the other side ever passed into the Borderlands.

But he had come anyway.

“Stay.” Calloused but tender hands brushed from his wrists to his shoulders, the chiseled body shifting against his. Despite the difference in their height, lips fitted naturally together. Of their own accord, his arms encircled the singer’s solid waist, his hands ghosting over each ripple of the sweat-slicked back.

Fingers cupped his jaw, a thumb delicately slid across his bottom lip. 

“I called, and you came.” There was reverence in the other’s man’s voice.

He allowed himself to succumb to the rightness of those words. For a little while longer, he could ignore the inevitable pull of his homeland.

****

They had each other through the darkness, as a foreign moon journeyed from horizon to horizon. Nestled in amber grass as their hearts tapped out a steady thrum of finally. 

Later, as his lover slept, cradled to his chest, he carefully traced the brow, the nose, the lips and chin for the last time, memorizing the man he would not see again. 

“Sleep content, my love, I grieve to have caused you pain,” he whispered. “With the dawn I will be pulled back to my world whether I would or no. Remember me as but a dream…remember me as the pillow for your head, and I will remember you in the music of the stars…and when the summer breeze touches your cheek, it will be my fingers from afar…”

Taking care not to wake him, he slid apart, and as he stood the first light of day crested the hill.

And he was gone.

****

The sleeper opened his eyes. “Nay, you are not but a dream.” He smiled. “I brought you to me once, and I will do it again. Being worlds apart cannot separate us forever.”

He rose and began to sing.

“There’s a green hill far away, in a land I love so well.  
And the sun, it shone so bright in the fields where once we did lay…”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: The very surprised sandymg  
> Disclaimer: No relevance to anyone’s real life.
> 
> A/N: This story was inspired by the song “The Borderlands” by Danny Carnahan, as sung by Tania Opland and Mike Freeman on their album “Cut to Rhythm.” You can listen here:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-2LK9VKVMtI


End file.
